Baseball

Bronco Baseball Loses Series Final at San Francisco

May 13, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - Looking to avoid a sweep, Santa Clara baseball fell to San Francisco by a final of 12-3 in the series finale. Santa Clara moves to.500 overall at 23-23 with the loss and is now 3-15 in conference play. San Francisco is now 27-28 overall and 12-9 in WCC play.

RHP Brock Simon (2-2; 4.37) picked up the loss in 6.0 innings of work. He allowed seven runs, six earned, on 10 hits with one walk and one strikeout. DH Lucas Herbst went 1-3 with a run scored and a stolen base out of the three-hole in the line-up.

Santa Clara returns to the field on Tue., May 15 at the University of the Pacific at 6 p.m. before travelling to BYU for a weekend series with the Cougars.

CF Justin Maffei hit a home run to left field to lead off the bottom of the first. After a ground out, 1B Nik Balog drew a walk. Now with two outs, C Mason Morioka was hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second. After two passed balls, Balog came around to score the second run of the inning before Simon got a strike out to end the inning.

With one out in the bottom of the second, DH Matt Chavez hit the second Dons' homer of the day as he cleared the left field fence. Simon settled down and ended the inning with the score 3-0.

The Broncos got on the board in the top of the fourth when Herbst laid down a bunt single and stole second. 2B Greg Harisis sacrificed Herbst to third and after a strikeout to LF Pat Stover, 1B Andrew Biancardi singled to center to bring the score to 4-1.

Leading off the bottom of the fifth Simon hit Maffei with a pitch and 2B Jason Mahood followed with a single to right. Balog advanced both runners with a ground out to first and SS Adam Clear singled to center to bring in a run. Morioka hit into a fielder's choice to make the score 5-1 before LF Tom Barry lined out to right to end the inning.

The Dons blew the game open with a seven-run seventh inning. Mahood singled to right field and Balog followed with a home run to center field to lead off the inning. LHP Max Deering came in to pitch for Simon and gave up three consecutive singles to load the bases. Deering got back-to-back fielder's choices but gave up a single to 3B Jordan Weiks to make the score 8-1 and was lifted for RHP Chris Mendoza. Maffei greeted Mendoza with a bases-clearing triple to right field and pinch hitter Brendan Hendriks followed with a single to left to extend the lead to 12-1. Balog drew a walk before Menodza was replaced by RHP Paul Twining who got the third out on a pop out to second.

With two down in the top of the ninth, Drew Ozanne got a pinch hit single to left field to extend the game. C.J. Jacobe came up as a pinch hitter and singled to right to put runners on the corners before C Zach Looney walked to load the bases. 3B Evan Peters reached on an error by the right fielder that let two runs score to make the score 12-3 San Francisco. SS Matt Glomb came up and flied out to right field to end the game.